I've been doing a lot of brainstorming for these oneshots, and I got ahead of myself and have already written out quite a few that take place in the future (7 plus years after the death of Koro-sensei). I'm excited to post them, but so far these chapters have been taking place in a linear fashion.
So I'm looking for opinions. Should I: a) Wait until the story reaches that point (probably won't be for another year or so in real time) to add them to this collection; b) Just post the oneshots as I complete them, which would lead the story to jump back and forth in time (which might be confusing for some); or c) Post the future oneshots as a separate collection so I can go at my own pace.
Please leave your thoughts in the reviews.
Shout out to darkprincess238 and TheRoseShadow21 for the lovely reviews. I hope you all like my attempt at a stream of consciousness-style drabble.
Hinano Kurahashi was woken up at 11:36 at night, drenched in sweat and her heart pounding.
As of recently, this was typical for her. It would happen at least twice, sometimes thrice a week, since the death of Koro-sensei.
Just like all those other nights, she had had a bad dream reliving the assassination. She focused on the tiny, specific details that didn't even occur to her at the time. The exact cadence of her heartbeat when he called her name for their final role call. The sound Nagisa's knife made when it slid into Koro-sensei's heart (one solid motion- a swoosh). The mild chill of the early spring night, how it stung her cheeks. How one of Kayano's tears fell on her. She didn't notice it, but 11:36 was the exact time of the assassination.
Assassination. A simple word. Five syllables long. She had heard it day in and day out for a year. Ass-ass-in-a-tion. The first two made you giggle, the third tickles your tongue, the fourth is pronounced in the throat, and by the time you came to the fifth syllable the gravity of what you meant was sinking in.
Careful not to wake her parents on the other side of the hotel room, she got up and walked to the balcony. Oh that's right, she was in Osaka right now. On the day of graduation, her parents would not let go of her, sobbing that their poor precious little girl was caught up in such a disaster, dealing with that monster every day. She didn't even bother to explain to them how far that was from the truth. They embraced her and cried, and promised to take her to Osaka over Golden Week to see one of the biggest aquariums in the entire world. Considering that she had been begging them to bring her since she could speak coherent sentences, she was grateful.
And when she arrived, well she was like a kid in a candy shop. Bouncing around the aquarium, bright-eyed and her smile big. She pictured riding on the back of a dolphin. Or diving down the Mariana trench and getting up close to an anglerfish.
But that day she found herself drawn to the octopi. Even more so than the exotic creatures, the penguins, the tropical sea turtles. No, something she could find scuba diving right off the coast of Japan was what enthralled her the most.
She loved all animals, true, but she had never given a second thought to octopi until now. One climbed on the glass of the exhibit, she could have sworn it stared her in the eye. It tapped the glass with the sucker on its tentacle. She admired the way it always looked like it was deep in thought.
Koro-sensei was also an octopus who was always deep in thought, though he didn't look like it. He looked so silly, with his dozens of tentacles flailing everywhere whenever Kataoka accused him of stockpiling snacks in the teachers' lounge. That was one of the things that Kurahashi loved about him. It comforted her that he chose that form. He wanted to be weak. She found that noble. Something she wanted to be.
She remembered the common octopus she saw, gliding through the water. How ironic was it, that her beloved teacher was an octopus who couldn't swim? But he could glide through the air just like that. He swam in the air. He swam all across the world, from Tokyo to Mumbai to Moscow to Paris to Los Angeles and then back to Tokyo for the next day of school.
And one time, he brought them. Because "yearbook photos on campus aren't enough, I want to see the world with my students!" So she went on her own little world tour with all of her friends. She rode the London Eye with Okano and wiped pigeon shit out of Terasaka's hair in New York City (Hey, someone had to do it). Koro-sensei had even taken a group photo of them in the Colosseum of Rome.
That one time was a mere two months ago. It seemed like a fairy tale to her now.
The Osaka skyline was lit up, even at this time of night. This was another one of those cities that never slept, just like all those places that Koro-sensei brought them to. The Koro-sensei constellation glimmered, and she found it brighter and more comforting than any of the buildings in this city. She smiled at it, wiping away a few tears.
Tomorrow was going to be another early day, her parents were taking her to the Umeda Sky Building. So Kurahashi went back to bed, and cuddled the little plush octopus she bought at the aquarium's gift shop. Her heartbeat was slowly returning to baseline.
I'm going to name it Koro-sensei, she thought as she tossed and turned, hoping that her next sleep would be more restful.
